


fear is how i fall

by giucorreias



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, M/M, Magical Realism, The Avengers are a werewolf pack, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 18:45:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13037172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giucorreias/pseuds/giucorreias
Summary: Bruce Banner was running—until he stopped.





	fear is how i fall

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write a werewolf fic for ages, i've even started some others, before, but the plot has always been huge and i'm not very good with big fics, so here it is: a somewhat smaller fic with werewolves! It was written for the delipa, a brazilian bl challenge, this time we were given books/movies/series titles and had to write something based on it, not the work, but solely the title. I got Beautiful Creatures (which in portuguese is "Sixteen Moons").
> 
> The scenes are not in any chronological order. Well, there is some chronological order, but it's a bit tricky to explain. Still, the order of the scenes is quite obvious so I don't think it'll be very confusing to read, if you've watched the movies.
> 
> I stole some teen wolf terminology, too. Omega werewolves are packless werewolves, it doesn't have anything to do with omegaverse. The red eyes are different, though, they don't mean alpha or anything.
> 
> the title comes from the song "crawling", by linkin park, which was a huge inspiration for the fic as well.

One of the advantages of being a werewolf was that Bruce could run  _ fast _ : while normal humans could achieve around 28 miles per hour, he could go well over 40, even when not transformed. Coupled with his strength, stamina and brains, that made him perhaps the greatest predator of any natural environment, above any other beings on the food chain—even humans.

Yet, ever since he’d first been cursed, Bruce had been nothing but prey.

 

*

 

He should have taken it as a bad sign that the letter arrived on a full moon night—and later he’d admit to himself that it was ironic that it did—but at the time, he’d been nothing but happy. Happy that someone had finally recognized his work. Happy that someone was willing to offer him a research opportunity.

It wasn’t easy to find such opportunities: the study of the supernatural phenomena as a science still suffered a lot of prejudice, even though the supernatural was no longer a secret. Most people didn’t think magic and science worked together, a misconception thousands of years old that they refused to abandon.

People like Bruce—who defied expectations, who stubbornly kept researching despite the difficulties, who just wanted to  _ understand _ —were forced to accept a lifetime of ridicule. That is, unless they were very lucky. So when the letter arrived on a full moon night, Bruce thought that’s what he was: lucky.

He was very wrong.

 

*

 

He was running. 

He could feel the wind against his face and the earth against his feet, his surroundings blurring as his heart beat fast. He couldn’t feel much beyond wariness and the beast crawling under his skin. He couldn’t remember how it felt to sleep well or eat properly.

He didn’t know how long he was going to last before he fell victim to his own anger—before the beast turned him feral. 

He needed a moment to breathe, but stopping meant Ross would get closer, and somehow he knew that’d be worse. 

He missed Betty.

 

*

 

At first, everything was perfect—he had his own lab, cutting-edge equipment, access to one of the best private libraries in the whole world. 

Most importantly, he had Betty Ross.

She was everything: beautiful, smart, loyal. She had the bluest eyes and the sweetest smile. She could read a book in archaic Latin in under six hours and keep up a conversation about the effects of earth spells on people’s health. She was also human, normal,  _ untainted _ .

Bruce had never met someone as pure—

he fell in love.

 

*

 

Brazil wasn’t too bad: the language was close enough to Spanish that he could get by, and his knowledge of Latin let him understand part of what his Spanish couldn’t. The people were nice, happy, open.

There were many supernatural beings sharing the grounds of Rocinha. A wendigo family right below him, a cluster of vampires three blocks down, a couple of shamans scattered all around—all following the lead of the ialorixá, an old black woman. 

There were no werewolves, which was for the best. 

Bruce had had no desire to enter a pack—he only ever wished to break the curse. 

 

*

 

Betty eyed the circle on the floor critically, balancing the heavy tome in one hand, the other holding a single candle that she put at the point that represented north. Bruce was holding a basket with several different herbs, sitting in the exact middle of the circle, mentally debating whether to use thyme or rosemary, purification or protection.

Leaning on the door was Thaddeus Ross, his face a mask of neutrality, his body language tense. The man’s brain was a bag of cats—an enormous contradiction. On the one hand, he was afraid of the supernatural and everything it entailed. On the other, he wanted to fight fire with fire and firmly believed that in order to protect humanity he needed improved soldiers: strong enough to go eye to eye against the monsters they hunted.

In a way, Bruce agreed with him. He wasn’t afraid of the supernatural, not in so many words, but it was a  _ fact _ that there were deadly creatures roaming around earth, and that their wild nature made them dangerous. If he could find a way to suppress the feral instincts while keeping the enhanced traits? He could give humanity a fighting chance. He could find a way to heal lycanthropy. He could give werewolves a better quality of life.

It had been done once before, during the World War. A man had been turned into a werewolf that didn’t feel the pull of the moon. Bruce had found some registers here, some references there. Nothing concrete, but enough to give him hope. No, not hope,  _ conviction _ . If it had been done before, it could be done again. It  _ would _ be done again.

Bruce was nothing if not smart, if not determined. Years of endless research and restless nights had lead him to that family, that house, that circle, that ritual. He was almost there, almost done. There was a sense of finality heavy on his stomach, a vibration under his skin—his heart was beating fast.

He took the thyme from the basket, settling down on purification. He wanted to separate the good from the bad—purification was closer. 

“Are you ready?” Betty asked, taking the basket away. She frowned at the him, her worry clear.

Bruce winked.

And she started chanting.

 

*

 

There was much to be said about Thaddeus Ross’ zeal.

Bruce really didn’t expect to be chased through half the continent—he thought he’d be safe in Brazil. And yet, not two months after first arriving, he’d been found.

It was a new moon night—and any other werewolf would have probably been weaker, but not Bruce. His curse wasn’t tied to the phases of the moon, wasn’t tied to nighttime. There was no respite, no moment to sit down and rest assured that it was over, even if temporarily. For Bruce, it was never over.

If he weren’t careful, if he didn’t keep himself calm, if his heart so much as accelerated—there were consequences.

The irony didn’t escape him: he had become the monster he had tried to protect humanity from.

 

*

 

Everything was wrong—the smells, the place, the hand on his fur. He did the only thing he could think of: he lashed out.

 

*

 

He woke up in a place he didn’t recognize and it was not a new feeling, though that didn’t make it any better. The fact that he rarely remembered what he’d been up to while in beast form made his skin crawl, his stomach churn.

He got up, the remainders of his clothing clinging to his body, drenched, and gracefully—or as gracefully as he could manage, with his sore feet against the slippery stone—left the waterfall.

He was no longer in Brazil.

He had no idea what day it was. 

 

*

 

The first thing Bruce smelled when he came to himself was blood—Betty’s. He didn’t know how he knew it was hers, just that it was. 

The first thing he heard was gunfire, and then Thaddeus’ voice.

Bruce never forgot the haunted look in his eyes, the absolute anger he could feel radiating from him. Even through the haze of his transformation and with the beast prowling inside of him, it wasn’t too hard to put two and two together: he knew what he’d done.

So he ran.

 

* 

 

“It’s good to meet you, Dr. Banner.” Tony Stark smiled at him, and there was something about that smile that made him feel at ease. “Your work on the effects of the moon on wereshifters is unparalleled. And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous dark wolf.” Tony offered him his hand, and Bruce took it.

For the first time since he was cursed, Bruce felt the beast settle.

“Thank you,” he said, unsure of what, exactly, he was thanking the man for. Not the compliment, entirely: he’d been running for so very long, knowing he couldn’t outrun the beast, hoping he could manage it regardless. Right at that moment, sitting where he was, Tony Stark’s warmth still lingering on his palm, he didn’t need to.

 

*

 

He smelled werewolf as soon as he approached the house. It should have been a sign that there was something wrong, but Bruce didn’t realize it until he was already inside and the door was locked behind him.

There was a woman sitting down by the wooden table, her face pleasantly neutral. Only her body language betrayed her nervousness: she held herself too stiff.

“Dr. Banner,” she said. Bruce sighed.

He wasn’t surprised to find himself cornered again, he had even expected it. He was, however, surprised by the way it had been done. Ross wouldn’t have bothered with the subterfuge, Bruce would have been shot on sight. Not Ross’ work, then. 

“You brought me to the edge of the city, that was… clever.” Bruce looked around the room, his enhanced senses picking up the details. Now that he was paying more attention, he could detect the carefully concealed smell of dozens of people. Professionals.

The woman let him explore the place, didn’t try to exert dominance, just kept her eyes trained on him. Not an alpha werewolf, but a beta, probably used to dealing with omegas such as himself. He frowned.

“If you are going to try to capture me, you will probably not like the result too much,” he said at last, turning to her, trying to gauge her reaction.

“That is not what I’m here for,” she said. Despite the fact that Bruce couldn’t hear the lie on her heartbeat, he didn’t believe her.

“Don’t lie to me!” he yelled, hitting his fist against the table, letting his eyes bleed deep red, his nails become claws. 

The woman had a pistol trained on him before the blink of an eye. 

Bruce smirked—there were now perhaps twenty heartbeat sounds just outside the shack they were in. 

“I apologize, that wasn’t very nice. I just wanted to know what you’d do.” Bruce sat down on the chair, waiting for her to make her move. He wasn’t disappointed.

 

*

 

Bruce had never seen such a weird pack, before. The woman who had convinced him to help them was called Natasha Romanoff, she was a russian ex-spy. There was Tony Stark, the werewolf alpha. Steve Rogers, the second-in-command. Clint Barton, an ex-werewolf hunter. Thor Odinson, who was apparently from another realm. Phil Coulson, who seemed to be the only normal person out of them all.

“I’m glad you decided to join us,” Coulson said. They were all in the kitchen, sitting around a huge table, piles of food scattered around. “Tony hasn’t stopped babbling about your work ever since we managed to locate you. It’ll be good to have some silence back.”

“Don’t be silly, Agent.” Tony drawled, taking his sunglasses off, his deep brown eyes shining with mirth. “When have I ever been silent?”

 

*

 

“We need your expertise,” The woman declared, to Bruce’s obvious surprise. “You’re the world’s leading expert in cursed wereshifters. We would like your help with someone.” 

“You could have sent a letter,” he joked, even though he knew she wouldn’t get the reference. The woman pursed her lips, eyebrows drawn. Bruce sighed. “I’m listening.”

“What do you know about Hydra?,” She asked after taking a minute to get something from under the table. Bruce resisted the desire to duck down and see if there was anything else hidden there. 

She opened a file, pushed it towards him. Bruce caught it before it tumbled down, and analysed the picture in it. An unconscious man with a metal arm. He looked underfed. Young. Abused.

“I’ve never dealt with them.”

“Lucky,” she said, then pointed at the picture he was looking at. “We call him Bucky. He’s the mate of one of my pack members. Hydra’s captured and brainwashed him, some sort of curse that allows them to control the mind of werewolves.” She paused, letting the information sink in. Bruce had heard of it before, though at the time he had dismissed it as rumours. He had had other things to worry about. “We’re hoping you’ll be able to break it.”

Bruce nodded. 

He hoped it didn’t backfire, this time.

 

*

 

The pack never really treated him as an outsider. Bruce would know—he’d been an outsider at countless packs, everywhere in the world. 

It was a novel feeling:  _ belonging _ .

 

*

 

Entering a pack’s established territory was always troublesome: werewolves were extremely territorial. So when Natasha said he’d be accompanying her to the Stark Mansion, Bruce couldn’t help but feel apprehensive.

There was that feeling again, the same one he had felt the day he cursed himself. At the time, he didn’t have a name for it. After feeling it countless times, it was now easy to recognize: foreboding.

Something important was about to happen.

 

*

 

“What are you doing?” Tony asked, holding him by the arm. Bruce, that had hated being touched after becoming a werewolf, was surprised at not feeling bothered. He decided to analyse the feeling later, alone.

“It’s the full moon, Tony. I know you’re feeling restless.” Tony frowned, but didn’t deny. Bruce smiled sheepishly. “You should go run with your pack. The books will be here when you come back.” They had had that conversation before, when Tony had crashed from lack of sleep and proper food. “Remember what Phil told you, your pack needs you to be-”

“That’s not the problem,” Tony interrupted him, sounding frustrated. “You’re a werewolf too. You should come run with us.”

“You know I don’t feel the pull like you do.” 

“That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a good run.” Tony argued. “Capsicle doesn’t feel the pull, either, but he never misses one. I’ve been told it’s good for morale.”

“I don’t think that’d be wise, Tony. The beast is-” he stopped himself at Tony’s angry growl, showed him his neck on an obvious sign of submission. Another thing to analyse later when he was alone, though this one didn’t surprise him.

The werewolf part of him recognized Tony as their alpha.

“Come on, Brucie. You’ll be with the pack. Point Break is strong enough to stop you if worse comes to worse, but I don’t think it will. And I know you think so, too.”

“I don’t-”

“Please?”

Tony’s face was so earnest he didn’t find the strength to deny him. 

_ Troublesome _ .

 

*

 

When Tony said he had the biggest private library in the world, Bruce thought it had been an exaggeration. It hadn’t. Tony’s library was as big as he promised—bigger.

“Natasha should have started our conversation with the size of your library,” Bruce joked, forgetting for a moment that this was not free territory and inviting himself in. “I’d have come just for this.”

Tony chuckled.

“It’s good to finally meet someone who appreciates it properly,” Tony said, leaning on the threshold. “No one was properly awed by the size of it. I suppose I could forgive Point Break, since he is a prince from other realm, but the others don’t realize how hard it is to collect books about magic.”

“They were werewolves first,” Bruce said, distractedly checking a shelf full of different grimoires, some of them pretty old. He recognized a few names, but not all of them.

“They were my mother’s,” Tony said when he noticed his interest. Bruce took a step back, suddenly remembering where he was. 

It was already hard for most werewolves to be on his presence without him forgetting the rules. He didn’t want to antagonize the alpha on his first day.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Tony waved him off, unconcerned. “You’re welcome to any book in the library. I want you to be comfortable here, Dr. Banner.”

“Then call me Bruce.”

Tony beamed. Who would ever deny him anything, Bruce thought, when his smile was such a beautiful thing.

 

*

 

Stark Mansion had a huge grove on the backyard, its boundaries protected both by magic and the pack’s scent. Hours before sunset, everyone started getting ready. Bruce had seen it before: they prepared food, separated extra clothes. They took some books and games, for the human members who sometimes showed up—Virginia Potts, Colonel Rhodes, Thor’s girlfriend, a Dr. Jane Foster.

As soon as night started to fall, everyone moved towards the clearing, each on their own pace. Tony was usually the first, as the alpha, but that night in particular he waited.

For Bruce.

It was sweet and unexpected and it made him feel warm inside.

“Maybe I should stay human,” Bruce muttered. Tony had his arm on Bruce’s shoulders, and was slowly guiding him towards the group, as if afraid Bruce wouldn't show up if left to his own devices.

He probably wouldn’t. Bruce could already hear the pack’s laugh and he didn’t want to be responsible for its disappearance.

“You promised me, Bruce. You can’t go back on your word.”

“No I didn’t, Tony.”

“It’ll be alright, Bruce.”

“It will,” he agreed. Wished. Hoped.

Bruce had never transformed in a non-violent environment before—he had never transformed when he wasn’t angry.

He was expecting it to be a bit different, but in the end it was like being a completely different person—wolf. There were no incidents.

It was perfect. 

 

*

 

Another circle, another library, another family. The similarities didn’t escape him—and yet, Bruce knew there was something fundamentally different this time. He wouldn’t fail. Even if succeeding meant it was time to go back to running, he wouldn’t fail.

There was too much at stake.

He leaned against the wall, opening the tome, willing his hands to stop trembling so he could start. The whole pack was there, different shades of worry colouring their faces. Even Natasha’s. Even  _ Phil’s _ . 

I’ll miss this, Bruce thought, I’ll miss  _ them _ . 

Tony, that had been standing by his side, rested his head on his shoulders.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low. “It’ll be alright.”

“It will,” Bruce agreed, but everyone could hear the lie. 

Tony stepped in front of him, held Bruce’s face between his hands and kissed him deeply. The beast rumbled happily, inside. 

When Tony took a step back, to get some air, Bruce repeated: “It will.”

There was no lie this time.

 

*

 

At some point between running with the pack for the first time and kissing Tony, Bruce stopped thinking of the beast as a curse. At some point between running with the pack for the first time and kissing Tony, Bruce found his home.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on my [tumblr](http://giucorreias.tumblr.com/)~


End file.
